Brownies | A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing
She shrugs, unties her hair and whips it around like a dog shaking off its wet. She's clutching her helmet in one hand and extracting a Tupperware container from her shoulder bag. 'Brownies. I just baked them this morning.'
A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing
Jessie Tu
My pile of to read books are slowly piling up and I’m finally making time for them. You’d think spending a year in strict lockdown in 2020 would have been a huge reading year but nope. Somehow being able to now sit in tiny cafes and bars have increased my book consumption by a crazy amount. Though I have found myself drifting back to re-reads of some classic favourites, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Secret History, and many more. In saying that though, I have also had about four more books appear in my mailbox this week as well.
A Lonely Girl is A Dangerous Thing is the perfect book for any past overachiever. Focusing on the life of a child prodigy after a fall, it delves into some dark corners. Unapologetically abrasive about what story it is telling, I pushed through this novel at some stage last year and have only recently done a re-read.
There are a number of dishes I could have made from these pages, the miso bolognese is something I definitely want to try at some stage soon, along with fish tacos. I have been wanting an excuse though to make some classic brownies. I’ve struggled a lot to find a good recipe for plant-based ones that don’t contain black beans or that need some hard to find ingredients. Not that black bean brownies aren’t deliciously fudgy, but I wanted some basic, easy to make ones that had a classic shiny and crackly top. These turned out amazing, and I’m already planning a range of different versions.
Brownies
Ingredients
275g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp bi-carb soda
1 tsp sea salt + extra for the top
95g Dutch cocoa powder
115ml vegetable oil
240ml boiling water
100g dark chocolate, finely chopped
320g raw caster sugar
2 tsp instant espresso powder, if you use actual espresso just minus that from the boiling water
2 tsp vanilla essence
90g dark chocolate, in chunks
Preheat the oven to 175C and line a pan (I used one that was 27.5 x1 7.5) with baking paper that have been lightly brushed with a little bit of oil.
In a bowl combine the flour, 1 tsp of sea salt, and the bi-carb soda together, put to the side for now.
In a seperate bowl combine the cocoa, 100g dark chocolate, espresso powder, and the boiling water. Stir until the chocolate has well melted.
Add in the sugar, vanilla and oil. Whisk together until the sugar has dissolved. You want to make sure the chocolate mixture is still hot when you add te sugar to it - as it melting gives it that lovely crackly top.
Mix the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture, stirring in the extra 90g of chocolate chunks.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, smoothing the top out. Bake for around 35 minutes - it shouldn’t wobble in the pan when it is done and the surface should be nice and crackly. Sprinkle the extra sea salt on top.
Let the brownies cool completely in the pan before removing. Enjoy!
